The Fierce Faces of 5th Ave

Jason Suarez captures some of the faces of the elite women before the start of the 2018 5th Avenue Mile in New York City.

Captions by his son, Stephen Kersh.

Usually a smile this big deserves 0 fear points, but sometimes when people smile it means you should run for your life. Colleen obviously knows something. She knows she has a 4:20 mile in her legs. She knows you don’t. Run away. But in an opposite direction because she would catch you.

Whenever I tell a stranger a joke, this is the face I get. It’s very scary and you don’t know if they’re trying to process the humor and will soon respond with a laugh, or they’ve processed the lack of humor and are ready to beat your ass. I get it, Cory. I’m not funny.

Kate Grace is disappointed in you. Disappointment is the path to the dark side. Disappointment leads anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to you suffering at the hands of Kate Grace.

When you see someone who you’ve only ever seen smiling not smiling, you should be ready to die. Jenny Simpson does not have time for your bullshit and she is quite ready to bulldoze anyone standing between her and her 100th consecutive 5th Ave Mile crown.

Generally it’s worrisome to line up next to a global gold medalist because they are better than you, it’s even more of a problem when the global medalist is furrowing her brow. A furrowed brow can only mean one thing, buddy: you’re in for an ass whoopin’.

Come for the piercing eyes, stay for the slight grin that will ultimately lead to your disembowelment.

Katie is giving us that 1000 yard stare. It’s like she just got back from war. It wasn’t a war with you, though. Because if it were a war with you, you’d be dead.

About 60 seconds away from the gun going off at an ultra-competitive foot race and Adele Tracey is out here thinking about what she’s going to do with the millions of dollars she will ultimately win from the race after setting numerous records and inheriting the contracts of all the women she left in her wake.

Rachel Schneider is unimpressed with what she just saw Spiderman do. She glanced into the skyscrapers and saw some dude in red long underwear do a quad-triple salchow to save a falling hedge fund manager and she’s confident she can do better.

It’s so close to just being a nice, happy smile but it’s also the furthest thing away from it because she’s ready to melt your spleen with a kick that starts 1500 meters away from the finish.

Stephen Kersh

Former collegiate runner for University of Portland and Georgetown, currently a professional runner weighing sponsorship offers from no one. Enjoys using the internet to message Scott Olberding and Paul Snyder about bad story ideas. Does not assume he will work at Citius much longer due to the bad story ideas.
He once gave a TED Talk titled "Twitter: How We Are All Just Shouting into a Vacuum" to his best friend and his girlfriend on the beaches of Connecticut.